Julia Gartrell turns trash into treasure

Thursday

Feb 15, 2018 at 1:19 PMFeb 15, 2018 at 1:19 PM

By Ann Wood Banner Correspondent

A white and translucent circle made of hundreds of contact lens cases resembles a life saver as it leans against a wall in visual fellow Julia Gartrell’s studio at the Fine Arts Work Center. Though it’s her guilt-reducing way of reusing her daily contact lens containers, it may also be a homage the time she worked at the Michigan Commission for the Blind, where she led a 3-D tile project. The vision loss among the project’s participants varied — some had never had sight while others had once been able to see. Either way, Gartrell says that color was vital to the process. Those who were blind from birth imagined what they thought different colors looked like and which ones should go next to each other, while those who had a memory of blues and yellows and reds cared sincerely about what went where. They talked about color a lot.

“It was so interesting,” Gartrell says.

Indeed, her process has led to many interesting discoveries. No matter where she goes, she finds cast-off items for her work. A tightly woven rope made up of six months worth of trash hangs on one wall of her studio. A basket that recalls traditional Appalachian crafts is made of ropes that Laura Ludwig of the Center for Coastal Studies gave her, as did some of Provincetown’s lobstermen. Gartrell will show her work in an exhibition called “Underbelly,” which opens at 6 p.m. on Friday at the work center at 24 Pearl St. in Provincetown.

She has exhibited nationally and internationally, and has participated in residencies at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, Ox-Bow School of Art in Michigan and even one in Ifitry, Morocco. When her time at the work center is over, she plans to teach at Virginia Commonwealth University.

There was never any doubt that the 31-year-old was destined to become a sculptor. She learned to work with what others would consider garbage back in her hometown of Durham, N.C. That’s where The Scrap Exchange, a creative reuse arts center that gathers clean, industrial waste materials and invites the community to use them to make art, is located. There are bottle caps at the exchange, industrial thread cones, and more. Things are pieced together using tape and staples. Glue is not allowed.

“So I grew up in this weird little mecca,” she says.

She chose to have her first official birthday party as a kindergartner at The Scrap Exchange — and made magic.

“It’s all about physical connection,” Gartrell says. “They’re not beautiful until you put them together.”

Her father, who wrote science books, encouraged her to play around with materials at home. Her middle and high school years were spent at magnet arts schools. Though Gartrell knew that she was “pretty good” at art and enjoyed it, she didn’t feel as if she was the best student. So she chose to attend Kalamazoo College in Michigan to study science, and that led to her realization that what she really excelled at was sculpture. She took five years off after receiving her BA in art, working at The Scrap Exchange, pursuing her own projects at home. She then returned to Kalamazoo for a year of post-bac study in the art department, which led her to the Rhode Island School of Design, where she taught and received her MFA.

Her sculptures are so inviting and familiar to people that they often want to touch them.

“I have problems with people at my shows,” she says, imitating gallery-goers with her arms outstretched like Frankenstein’s monster, slowly walking toward a sculpture that stands mid-studio. That’s actually OK, she adds — “as long as they ask and they’re careful with it.” The desire to touch her work makes sense to her.

“People really like to identify with the objects,” Gartrell says. They recognize things they once owned embedded in pieces. “I like being a fly on the wall, because people get it more than I think they do.”

Her work is a riff on traditional American craft and culture, which often means making do with the materials at hand. Her website claims that her paternal ancestors were subsistence farmers in rural north Georgia, and that she is a gatherer of oral history, lore and relics.

Gartrell doesn’t keep things just for the sake of having them, but she will hold onto junk for years, waiting for its new form to be revealed to her, such as a plastic Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee cup that is balanced under a furniture leg. Then there’s a work boot that’s been transformed into exaggerated footwear to correct different-sized legs.

And when “Underbelly” is presented and done, she’ll be glad to have two-and-a-half months left at the work center. She has plans for some bigger projects that will be seen when the fellows’ studios are open to the public. Because she’s a sculptor, she’s not counting on making any money — sculpture is a hard sell — and isn’t concerned about it.

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
Wicked Local Provincetown ~ P.O. Box 977 Provincetown, MA 02657 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service